Safe and Sound
by angie1379
Summary: Castle and Beckett debrief each other during some pillow talk. Post-ep for Target/Hunt. "You were there, Kate. The whole time you were there, grasping at any straw, hunting for every needle, and never letting me lose hope."


Summary: Castle and Beckett debrief each other during some pillow talk. Post-ep for Target/Hunt. "You were there, Kate. The whole time you were there, grasping at any straw, hunting for every needle, and never letting me lose hope."

Disclaimer: These characters are officially in the hands of owners far more deserving and creative than I.

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**Safe and Sound**

Kate stepped out of the bathroom and was immediately arrested by the sight of Castle lying on the bed, hands folded on his chest, and eyes only half open and staring at the ceiling. He admittedly looked more at peace than she'd seen him in days, but the specter of fear and helpless still haunted his features. Immediately, she was grateful she'd opted for yoga pants and a tank top instead of the cammy and boy shorts she'd originally picked from her corner of the closet. He obviously needed comfort more than seduction.

When she walked into the room, his eyes met hers, and she saw the worry begin to thaw a little more from his face.

His room had become almost as familiar to her as her own, and she made her way purposefully to what had become "her side" of the bed. Whether he still occupied the whole bed when she stayed at her place, she didn't know, but on nights she was with him, the left side had become hers.

He was first to break the silence. "I'm glad you stayed. I was afraid you wouldn't."

She slid under the sheet and turned toward him, propped on a pile of fluffy, down pillows. "I wasn't sure. I thought maybe you'd want to be alone with your family."

"I do," he replied softly, letting his eyes finish the thought.

She wasn't sure what to say to that, so she just accepted it and let the warmth contained in those two impossibly meaningful words flow through her. They had become family – something so colossal, yet somehow so natural.

"Are you okay?" she whispered.

He took a deep breath, his chest expanding with the futile effort to release nearly a week's worth of mind-numbing, paralyzing fear as easily as he could release the air in his lungs.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Glad it's over, that's for sure." A pause, and then, "It's just …"

And then he faltered, darting his eyes around as if the words he didn't have were scattered throughout his room. He didn't know how to finish his thought. Just … what? Just unable to get the sight of his daughter locked in a cage out of his head? Just can't stop thinking about the mysterious father he spent a pitifully insufficient few hours with? Just still feeling the adrenaline that had propelled him and Alexis across Paris to the safety of the Embassy? Or perhaps he was just unable to process every event of the past four days. He wondered if he'd ever be able to close his eyes again without a hundred images, some of them downright harrowing, running an endless slideshow across his eyelids.

"I know," she offered, all too aware of what that kind of oppressive weight felt like. She ran her hand across his forearm until she could wrap her fingers around his, grateful he did not pull away or withdraw. In fact, he squeezed back and then pulled her closer.

"Thank you."

"For what?" She asked bluntly. "I've never felt so ineffective in my life. I didn't do anything, Castle."

"You were there, Kate. The whole time you were there, grasping at any straw, hunting for every needle, and never letting me lose hope."

She placed a kiss on his shoulder and drew herself along his side. "I'm used to that being your job."

He smiled, knowing she was right. He'd never come so close to letting his fears get the better of him as he had facing the reality that other people were in control of his daughter's life and could end it at any moment. It wasn't something he ever wanted to feel again.

Silence stretched between them as they each thought about the preceding days. Even the day of recovery that had just ended had been filled with emotional exhaustion as Castle shared the secret truth of Alexis' abduction with Kate and Martha. His mother had taken the revelation of his father's identity impressively well, masking her tears behind quips about her impeccable taste in men. But Castle saw the relief wash over her, erasing four decades of questions about why she'd been abandoned and left pregnant by a man she'd fallen in love with after only one day. Kate had listened to the story, feeling like Castle was reading one of his books to her. It was surreal to imagine him meeting with operatives-for-hire in a Paris tunnel, then being double-crossed for $3 million, and finally teaming up with the father he had never met but who had always hovered in the shadows of his life.

The hours of the day had rolled by as his adventure unfolded, interspersed with Alexis' recount of her experiences – at least what she could remember after waking up in the makeshift cell with Sara. Questions were asked, details were rehashed, and memories were dissected as everyone tried to fit all the pieces into a narrative that was even stranger than Castle's fiction. At one point, he and Kate had theorized on possible connections between Gregor Volkov and the late CIA-double agent Sophia Turner, speculating on whether they had ever crossed paths and if her re-entry into Rick's life had been with the ulterior motive of gaining intel for Volkov. After all, she had snuck into his loft and would have had plenty of time to do some digging. Perhaps that's when this plan had been hatched.

On a more emotional front, Martha had told them about her brief time with Jackson Hunt, a name she had never before admitting to knowing, but which apparently had quite a long shelf life for the man who adopted it. Her story was couched in terms that would not offend the sensibilities of her son and granddaughter, and she reiterated that it was a very special night, packed with all the romance and passion usually experienced over months and years. Even with the heartbreak that came the morning after and the petrifying fear of discovering she was pregnant, she never regretted that night, and not only because it had produced her son. "I fell in love," she said almost reverently, "and even if it only lasted one night, it was better than never knowing that depth of feeling could exist." Then, with a wink to Kate, she promised to dish more later, to which Kate was left self-consciously uncertain how to respond.

Back in the present, Kate saw that Castle was still lost in his own thoughts, his eyes still dark and troubled.

"Tell me again about him. What was he like?"

"My father?"

"No, the president of France," she deadpanned.

He chuckled at her sarcasm before wrapping his arms around her and turning toward her, finally detaching his eyes from the ceiling.

"Smartass," he mumbled under his breath.

He collected his thoughts a moment longer, then began talking. "He was … different than I thought he'd be. I mean, sure I'd fantasized about my dad being a spy – what fatherless kid wouldn't. But I also imagined him as a pirate, and astronaut, and Han Solo. I never actually _believed_ he was a spy. He was tough, you know … chiseled. You could tell the job had taken its toll. But he was smart and knew his stuff. He saved our lives. And he cared, Kate. He was sincere. I really think he wanted to be there for me but didn't know how. He couldn't give up the job, so he did what he could, when he could. And yeah, it's a little creepy knowing someone has been watching me my whole life, but now, knowing that, it just makes sense. It fits somehow, and I don't blame him."

"You're not angry at him for choosing his career as a spy over you and your mom?"

"Oh, I was, many times over the years when I really could have used a dad or when Mother ended another relationship. I remember thinking, _This wouldn't be happening if my father had stuck around_. I felt my share of resentment toward him as a kid, and even as an adult, especially when I became a father. But that's also when anger turned to pity. He had missed out on all these amazingly wonderful moments I was getting to experience with Alexis. It was his loss, and Mother did everything she could to make sure I felt his absence as little as possible."

She let that sink in, marveling again at the wondrous contradictions that defined Martha Rogers. But her thoughts returned to the parent whose absence Martha had had to compensate for. "Do you think you'll ever see him again?"

"Honestly, I hope so. There's so much we didn't get to say. I don't even have a picture of him."

Kate thought for a moment, then offered what small consolation she could: "We do have the sketches of him from the witnesses. Maybe we can get an artist to make one into a better quality portrait." Then unable to resist, she quipped, "He's pretty good-looking, you know. Dare I say even ruggedly handsome."

That drew another smile, and after days of seeing nothing but a worried and haunted countenance, she was grateful for it. "He's funny, too," Castle added, "good sense of sarcasm and wit. I think you'd like him."

"I think I would, too. I'm more than a little fond of the half of him I already know."

Kate settled her head on his shoulder, wondering whether to keep talking or accept that more than enough had been said for one day. Before she could decide, Castle made the choice for her.

"I'm sorry I lied to you and took off like that."

The abrupt change of subject caught her off guard, and she felt him tense as he awaited her reply.

"I won't pretend I wasn't upset, but I get why you did it, Castle. In fact, I was more mad at myself for not anticipating it. I should have known you'd do something like that."

"You forget, my dear, I'm half spy. Covert ops is in my blood." At her pointed (though still amused) look, he conceded, "Okay, I get it – still too soon. Seriously, though, I just couldn't sit there anymore and listen to their bureaucratic runaround. The El-Masris did what they had to to get Sara back, and I had to do the same. But I shouldn't have done it without telling you. I should have trusted you more than that."

His words meant so very much to her, erasing the lingering resentment that he'd shut her out. But that resentment had come with its own serving of crow, and she was a big enough person to acknowledge it. "Like I trusted you when I went after Bracken? I left you in my bed in the middle of the night because I was afraid you'd stop me, and I knew it was something I had to do. Ring familiar?"

His mouth quirked up in a knowing smirk. "Yeah, I guess it does. But at least you stayed in the country – and you have a bit more training in weapons and combat."

"True, but that's not what I needed against Bracken. I was out of my league, just like you were out of yours."

"So either we're both more skilled than we give ourselves credit for …"

"Or we're just damn lucky."

"What do you say we take a break from pushing that luck for a while?" His words were light, but they'd both had more than their fill of close calls in the past several months. A few weeks of normalcy was all they really needed.

"Yeah, I think I can do that," she said, before pressing on. "So, what now, Castle? Where do you go from here?"

Castle inhaled deeply, considering her words. "The phrase 'back to normal' doesn't even sound possible, but I guess that's where we'll eventually get. Alexis isn't going back to Columbia until after spring break. Given the circumstances, I'm sure she can take advantage of deferred grades if she needs to finish up over the summer."

"And you?"

"I wish I knew. How do you move past something like this, Kate?"

She hoped the question wasn't rhetorical, because for once, she actually had an answer for him. "Remember the zombie guy last year? You asked the same question about him, and I think the answer is still the same. Find some help, Castle. Talk to someone. Even if it's only for a few weeks, it will help get you past the worst of it. I promise."

He nodded, knowing the wisdom of her words. Alexis still had a full life ahead of her, and if he had trouble letting her go before, he knew he was going to need some industrial-strength help to resist implanting a GPS chip in her arm and re-enacting the Spanish Inquisition on all of her friends.

"Do you think she's okay upstairs by herself?"

"She's back in her own room, and your mom is right next door to her. The door to this room is open, so if there's any commotion, we'll hear it."

He seemed to accept that and settled back into the mattress and pillows.

"I'm glad you're here, Kate," he said softly, leaning over to press a soft, lingering kiss to her lips. "I'm glad _we're_ here and not like we were last year – together, but still so far apart."

"I know. I couldn't imagine watching you go through this with some kind of imaginary wall between us."

"Well, just be glad we didn't have to. We have each other. That's what all this is about, right?"

Their eyes locked and held as dozens of memories of near-death escapes and close calls ran through their minds. They had been through a lot together, but nearly losing Alexis brought a kind of fear that had no equal, especially for Castle.

"Right," she said, still assuming the role of comforter and supporter. "We're in this together, Castle. No matter what."

"No matter what," he agreed solemnly.

It took all her courage to continue meeting the intensity of his eyes, so blue they almost shined. It was a rare but necessary reminder to both of them that they were in the same place and moving in the same direction. He deserved her acknowledgment, her assurance, that she was just as committed as he was. And she welcomed the subtle encouragement to put words to her feelings. There were still things to be said, but for now, they knew they had weathered another storm, probably the worst they'd faced. And tomorrow they would begin healing once again.

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The End


End file.
